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23rd out of 381 books
—
928 voters
Family Matters
Rohinton Mistry’s enthralling novel is at once a domestic drama and an intently observed portrait of present-day Bombay in all its vitality and corruption. At the age of seventy-nine, Nariman Vakeel, already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, breaks an ankle and finds himself wholly dependent on his family. His step-children, Coomy and Jal, have a spacious apartment (in t...more
Paperback, 448 pages
Published
November 18th 2003
by Vintage
(first published April 8th 2002)
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This book did for me what Suketu Mehta's "Bombay. Maximum City" couldn't - I could see, smell and feel the mega-city throughout the pages of this both realistic and nostalgic novel. I suppose that also my unability to throrouhghly enjoy non-fiction plays a role in this, I just need characters and plot to stay interested through a thick volume and Mistry provides both in a masterly way. Bombay and his protagonist's love and hate for the rotting and still lovely and lively place is one of the topi...more
8 likes · like · see review
As Nariman counts his last breaths amid the serene violin rendition of Brahms Lullaby, played by Daisy, my mind races through a gloomy apartment where the stale odor of eau de cologne amalgamates in the air of misery thriving among the bustling of outside traffic and noisy vendors trying to earn their daily wage unaware of Nariman’s existence. The acridity of my parched throat makes me think about my death. Will I die as a happy soul or will death be a gift that I would crave in the course of vu...more
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Rating: 4.5/5
This book is not surprisingly about a family. More specifically, it follows three generations of a Parsi family living in modern Mumbai (formerly Bombay). As the grandfather of the family, Nariman is likely the best candidate to be declared the main character of this novel, but it is truly and ensemble cast, with Nariman's step children Jal and Coomy, his daugther and son-in-law Roxanna and Yezda and his grandchildren Janghela and Murad all playing important roles.
This is an exquisi...more
This book is not surprisingly about a family. More specifically, it follows three generations of a Parsi family living in modern Mumbai (formerly Bombay). As the grandfather of the family, Nariman is likely the best candidate to be declared the main character of this novel, but it is truly and ensemble cast, with Nariman's step children Jal and Coomy, his daugther and son-in-law Roxanna and Yezda and his grandchildren Janghela and Murad all playing important roles.
This is an exquisi...more
I usually feel a little bit of glow after finishing any book. I have the bad habit of calling every book I just finished "my favorite" -- until I finish the next one. But in this case, I really must stress that Family Matters is one of the best books I have ever read. I never re-read books, but this is one of those rare gems that even I want to return to.
If you took all of Shakespeare's tragedies, condensed them into a story about one family, and set it in Bombay in the 1990s, this book would b...more
If you took all of Shakespeare's tragedies, condensed them into a story about one family, and set it in Bombay in the 1990s, this book would b...more
Took me a while to get into this one -- but once I was in, it was quite a remarkable read. Mistry spins a tale about Bombay through the story of one family undergoing dramatic yet completely plausible, at times quiet, ordinary events. Mistry is not trying to wow anyone through crash-boom-bang events, yet even in its subtlety this story had a Shakespearean sense of tragedy and betrayal and loss -- not just for the family, but for a city whose beauty and vibrance was contantly underscored by corru...more
Another beautiful book by one of my favourite writers.
Set in Mumbai (Bombay), it is constructed almost like an intimate play, because the action concentrates on one small family (they are Parsis), and most of it takes place in two apartments. Nariman Vakeel, a former professor who lives in a spacious flat with his two middle-aged stepchildren, becomes bedridden due to a leg injury. His stepchildren cannot cope with caring for him, and they manage to dispatch him to the much smaller flat of his...more
Set in Mumbai (Bombay), it is constructed almost like an intimate play, because the action concentrates on one small family (they are Parsis), and most of it takes place in two apartments. Nariman Vakeel, a former professor who lives in a spacious flat with his two middle-aged stepchildren, becomes bedridden due to a leg injury. His stepchildren cannot cope with caring for him, and they manage to dispatch him to the much smaller flat of his...more
This review is from Amazon.com, which gives the book 4.5 stars: Set during the 1990s in an overcrowded and politically corrupt Bombay, Rohinton Mistry's Family Matters depicts a traditional Parsi family being torn apart by lies, love, and its unresolved demons of the past. Nariman Vakeel is an aging patriarch whose advancing Parkinson's disease and its related complications threaten to destroy his large Parsi family. When Nariman breaks his ankle and becomes bedridden, his two stepchildren turn...more
Set in India, this novel’s primary focus is on an elderly man who’s nearing the end of his days and how his step children and his daughter and her family deal with their relationships with him and each other.
The process of dying, the eventual outcome and its aftermath bring out the very best and the very worst in families. It happens all the time and this novel illustrated so many of the aspects which are played out in family after family. Commonly, some resort to bickering, revulsion over vit...more
The process of dying, the eventual outcome and its aftermath bring out the very best and the very worst in families. It happens all the time and this novel illustrated so many of the aspects which are played out in family after family. Commonly, some resort to bickering, revulsion over vit...more
In his third novel, "Family Matters," Mistry proves that his ingeniousness is a never-ending ocean.
The rather insistent double-meaning title, "Family Matters" tells the story of three generations of a Parsi family in Mumbai, India. You see life through the eyes of 79-year old Nariman Vakeel, a retired university professor of English who gets struck by Parkinson's disease and has nothing left to do in life but reflect. Over the course of the narrative, Nariman becomes less central as he deterior...more
The rather insistent double-meaning title, "Family Matters" tells the story of three generations of a Parsi family in Mumbai, India. You see life through the eyes of 79-year old Nariman Vakeel, a retired university professor of English who gets struck by Parkinson's disease and has nothing left to do in life but reflect. Over the course of the narrative, Nariman becomes less central as he deterior...more
I read this book in just 2 days, it was so engrossing. Not as good as A Fine Balance, but still an illuminating look into the lives of Indians living a typical middle class life. Apart from the Indian focus, I just loved the detailed exploration of what it feels like to guide a close relative to death in your home, especially from the points of view of the two boys aged 9 and 12 (I think). The struggle to not resent a parent or in-law for needing care and suddenly being so helpless was presented...more
Not as depressing as A Fine Balance, but very good. So good at developing characters. Feel like I’ve gone through their journey with them. I see the subtle and not so subtle changes that occur because of circumstances. Not a lot of « action, » but it feels like there is so much going on. Everything is connected and flows well. The change in Yezad is greatest and it’s hard because in some ways it’s good and others is bad. While he found religion it made him more compassionate to Nariman, but chan...more
As engrossing as A Fine Balance but far less depressing - thank goodness! The family at the centre of this saga are the victims of events and politics, but there are fewer overt comments on the state of the nation, and their hard times are not quite as desperate as those of the tailors in the earlier book.
The selfish Coomy is a wonderful villan almost literally hoist by her own petard, and the history of her step-father's relationships is nicely revealed as the main story of his decline is told...more
The selfish Coomy is a wonderful villan almost literally hoist by her own petard, and the history of her step-father's relationships is nicely revealed as the main story of his decline is told...more
Rohinton Mistry takes us right into the life of a family in this book, a family with all its
conflicts, its misunderstandings, its jealousies, and unexpected moments of redeeming love. India, his setting, seems to make
everything feel bigger and more important, both hopeless and hopeful.
Nariman is an old man who has experienced much sadness and pain in his life. He lives with his stepchildren, Jal
and Coomy, who try without much success to protect him from the world. His natural daughter, Roxa...more
conflicts, its misunderstandings, its jealousies, and unexpected moments of redeeming love. India, his setting, seems to make
everything feel bigger and more important, both hopeless and hopeful.
Nariman is an old man who has experienced much sadness and pain in his life. He lives with his stepchildren, Jal
and Coomy, who try without much success to protect him from the world. His natural daughter, Roxa...more
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This is the last book I had to read to complete Mistry's 4-book (?) collection. So when I got down to reading it it was mostly with the intention of completing at least one author's collection of books. A few pages into the book however made me forget all intentions; I just wanted to keep reading this book. It was simply amazing! And it just made me remember Mistry's genius ability to surprise the reader: Although he does explore particular emotions of loss, sorrow, joy, guilt, in all his books,...more
I want to like this book. I remember reading A Fine Balance and being moved by it. I thought it was somewhat melodramatic and that while some of the characters were interesting, many seemed one dimensional, particularly the "bad" guys. Both things feel particularly true about this book so far.
Nariman is the aging patriarch of the family, Jal and Coomy's step father. He's salt of the earth. You get that from the first page. And Jal and Coomy are not nice. Ungrateful wretches. When Nariman, who h...more
Nariman is the aging patriarch of the family, Jal and Coomy's step father. He's salt of the earth. You get that from the first page. And Jal and Coomy are not nice. Ungrateful wretches. When Nariman, who h...more
2 likes · like · see review
Oct 25, 2009
notgettingenough
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anybody interested in real India
Shelves:
indian
Some years ago I found myself collecting a rather appalling statistic. Women in India who are burned to death by their husbands, often in collusion with the mother of the husband. The preferred method is to douse the wife in petrol and then set alight. It generally does the trick, though unfortunately sometimes one ends up with a dreadfully disfigured wife who survives.
The real eye-opening thing about this practice is that it is a middle-class commonplace. The woman burned to death may well have...more
The real eye-opening thing about this practice is that it is a middle-class commonplace. The woman burned to death may well have...more
1 like · like · see review
Jan 13, 2009
Yrinsyde
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
borrowed-from-a-friend,
ex-1001
Shortlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize
Nariman Vakeel, an elderly non-practising Zoroastrian, is gradually growing more infirm. This tale follows Nariman's journey towards death and how his family reacts to him and the concept of illness and decay. A fascinating novel and educational too; reading this exposes you to the little known religious practices of Zoroastrians, and also to greater social, geographical, political and economic facts about life in Bombay [Mumbai:], India. The characters...more
Nariman Vakeel, an elderly non-practising Zoroastrian, is gradually growing more infirm. This tale follows Nariman's journey towards death and how his family reacts to him and the concept of illness and decay. A fascinating novel and educational too; reading this exposes you to the little known religious practices of Zoroastrians, and also to greater social, geographical, political and economic facts about life in Bombay [Mumbai:], India. The characters...more
Family Matters is troubling, tender, disturbing, and 100% Rohinton Mistry. The title has, of course, a double entendre: family is important, but events in a family have a impact on it. And that's what happens in this book: a father's past interferes with his children's present. It changes the way they see him, care for him. It is also about the inevitable descent into old age and its concurrent loss of dignity and the helplessness of the old. It is about morality... and the power (and corruption...more
This is my first book written by Rohinton Mistry and WoW!!. I am impressed with his style of story telling. It is filled with rich prose and poetry. Though the story starts out slow, it slowly picks up pace and grips you as you get absorbed within the story. The family characters feel so real that they touch your heart and feel like your own family. I was touched everytime anything happy or sad events struck Jehangir, Nariman, Yezad, Jaal, Roxana and the rest. At various points in the story it m...more
Mistry transports us into the life of a struggling Parsi couple in Mumbai/Bombay. It is full of pathos and realism. His language graphically conjures up the characters, a tiny apartment, the marital tensions, the feelings of two young boys, the stresses of trying to cope with too little money and a naive employer, and particularly the deterioration in the health of the grandfather.
Nariman Vakeel is a 79 year old widower forces by circumstances and parents to reject his true love and marry withi...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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A very well written book about the intricacies of a Parsi family living in Bombay in the 90s. The book describes the toll that family relationships takes on the perspective of various individuals in a family. It takes the reader on a trip of happy, sad, frustating and testing moments of a family marred by love, hatred and mistrust on the so-called burdened shoulders of the younger generation yearning for their independence from the social responsibilities towards their elders. Written in a very...more
Ronhinton Mistry gives us a peek into a Parsee family, with all of the cultural & religious obligations, controversary, love, resentment, loyalty and bigotry involved in dealing with loved ones and extended families in Bombay, India. Mistry's characters in all his novels are likable,genuine real people but flawed, in some aspect. Yet he has the ability to make the reader understand the character in great detail. This novel was especially important to me , as I have an elderly parent that re...more
Aug 12, 2012
Mary Ellen
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
lovers of the traditional novel who want to learn about Parsi/Indian culture
I was swept up in this book initially: an intensely cabined family drama in which broader issues of a Bombay crumbling physically and morally intrude.
The deteriorating health of the family patriarch, suffering from Parkinson's, sets the family drama in motion. As in every family drama (I'm thinking Tolstoy's happy family doesn't really exist, and every family has its own unhappiness in its own way), old wounds, never healed, provide a none-too-subtle subtext for the present actions, divisions,...more
The deteriorating health of the family patriarch, suffering from Parkinson's, sets the family drama in motion. As in every family drama (I'm thinking Tolstoy's happy family doesn't really exist, and every family has its own unhappiness in its own way), old wounds, never healed, provide a none-too-subtle subtext for the present actions, divisions,...more
Yeah, I know: I should read A Fine Balance which is, in just about everyone's opinion, a better book than this one. But until I get around to that, 'FM' will have to serve as my only contact with this acclaimed author's production, and I have to admit that I'm underwhelmed. To be fair, there are things to be gleaned from reading this intimist narrative of domestic life in modern-day Mumbai/Bombay. The evocation of place and culture is strong, as is the in-depth observation of family dynamics. Bu...more
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The pace was a bit slow in the beginning and it took me a couple hundred pages to get in to the story, but then I couldn’t put it down.
The story is of a normal Parsi Indian family whose patriarch (grandfather and father) becomes incapacitated by Parkinson’s and a broken ankle. Each family member is forced to grow (and manoeuvre around the growth of their cohabitants) while dealing with the added stress of an unplanned for and ever-present, but loved and respected...more
The story is of a normal Parsi Indian family whose patriarch (grandfather and father) becomes incapacitated by Parkinson’s and a broken ankle. Each family member is forced to grow (and manoeuvre around the growth of their cohabitants) while dealing with the added stress of an unplanned for and ever-present, but loved and respected...more
Rohinton Mistry’s enthralling novel is at once a domestic drama and an intently observed portrait of present-day Bombay in all its vitality and corruption. At the age of seventy-nine, Nariman Vakeel, already suffering from Parkinson’s disease, breaks an ankle and finds himself wholly dependent on his family. His step-children, Coomy and Jal, have a spacious apartment (in the inaptly named Chateau Felicity), but are too squeamish and resentful to tend to his physical needs. Nariman must now turn...more
Though set in Bombay, an exotic and faraway city for me, this story seems to be every family's story, not just an Indian family's story. I marveled at Mistry's ability to make the story so universal, yet when Bombay, a main character even though it is a city, does enter the storyline, I am happily transported to that faraway place. Poverty, religious strife, family hardships...all those things are universal, but the images of a city woven of ancient culture and Western habits is so unique to Bom...more
A very sweet and touching story, where you sympathize with each and every of the characters:
- Nariman Vakeel - whose life becomes a mess due to his parents arranging a marriage for him. His love for Lucy, the situations he ends up in - all touch your heart in a strange way. Some parts of the story tug at your heart in strange way ,unloading their sadness to you also. Nariman's becoming an invalid in old age and being at mercy of others is also heart-rendering.
You also sympathize with Yasmin con...more
- Nariman Vakeel - whose life becomes a mess due to his parents arranging a marriage for him. His love for Lucy, the situations he ends up in - all touch your heart in a strange way. Some parts of the story tug at your heart in strange way ,unloading their sadness to you also. Nariman's becoming an invalid in old age and being at mercy of others is also heart-rendering.
You also sympathize with Yasmin con...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
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| Constant Reader: Discussion - Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry | 112 | 107 | Aug 27, 2012 09:51am |
Rohinton Mistry is considered to be one of the foremost authors of Indian heritage writing in English. Residing in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, Mistry belongs to the Parsi Zoroastrian religious minority.
Mistry’s first novel, Such a Long Journey (1991), brought him national and international recognition. Mistry’s subsequent novels have achieved the same level of recognition as his first. His second n...more
More about Rohinton Mistry...
Mistry’s first novel, Such a Long Journey (1991), brought him national and international recognition. Mistry’s subsequent novels have achieved the same level of recognition as his first. His second n...more
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“Everyone underestimates their own life. Funny thing is, in the end, all our stories...they're the same. In fact, no matter where you go in the world, there is only one important story: of youth, loss and yearning for redemption. So we tell the same story, over and over. Only the details are different. ”
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76 people liked it
“What folly made young people, even those in middle age, think they were immortal? How much better, their lives, if they could remember the end. Carrying your death with you every day would make it hard to waste time on unkindness and anger and bitterness, on anything petty. That was the secret: remembering your dying time, in order to keep the stupid and the ugly out of your living time.”
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5 people liked it
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Dec 12, 2012 01:36am
Feb 22, 2013 12:36pm
Fixed. Wow, I have no idea how I made that mistake in my review and didn’t ca...more
Feb 22, 2013 02:39pm